Smart Mouth Waitress (20 page)

Back at my house, she ate three cheese sandwiches and talked about all her problems while I laid out the paper body templates on a pink-and-grey-striped stretch-knit shirt I'd liberated from the laundromat.

My phone timer beep-beeped, but Haylee remained on her chair at the kitchen island, saying the laundry lady could “suck it.”

“It is Saturday,” I said. “The place will be busy.”

“They'll just pull my clothes and put them in a basket,” she said.

“People will touch your panties,” I said.

She grinned. “I hope they steal some so I can buy new ones.”

I threaded my needle and began putting the body together so I could stuff it. We do have a sewing machine, but it's not worth hauling out of the linen closet for such a small job, and besides, stitching by hand gave my Creatures charmingly bumpy seams.

“I guess Courtney's gone full-time-gay,” Haylee said.

“How do you get along with her new girlfriend, The Queen of England?”

“She seems okay. I don't see them much. Andrew likes to have me all to himself.” She smiled and wrapped her arms around herself, apparently still madly in love with him, which was great for Andrew. As I thought about him, I pictured his big head and strangely short arms, which always reminded me of those short-armed dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex. When I first met Andrew, his jerky laugh turned me off. He sounded like the cartoon mean kid who points and laughs when someone gets hurt. I wasn't a big Andrew fan.

As I was adding long bunny ears to my Creature, I wondered how it was someone like Andrew could get a girlfriend, and I was eighteen and had never had a boyfriend. I'd made out with some guys, even gotten into the occasional grope session, but I hadn't been able to snag and reel in a sweetheart, and yet Tyrannosaurus-head Andrew had.

I attempted to talk to Haylee about the two guys I liked, Marc and Cooper, but when I brought them up, whatever I said would remind her of a funny anecdote about Andrew and some new low-budget horror movie he was shooting or scouting locations for, and of course she had to tell me all about it.

“Haylee, can we talk about something besides Andrew?”

She blinked at me. After the stunned look wore off, she said, “I'm sorry. He's my whole life, besides school, but I forget other people have their own feelings.”

I smiled. “Other people do have feelings.”

She shook her head playfully. “Mind boggling! Okay, hit me with all your feelings.”

Put on the spot like that, I drew a blank. We sat quietly for a minute, then Haylee got up, grabbed the step stool, and raided our top shelf of junk, bringing down the Oreo cookies. “These Oreos give me feelings,” she said.

I said, “Do you think guys would like me better if I acted more … I don't know … normal?”

“Derp.”

“Don't
derp
me.” I
explained
how I'd taken the dreads out and had really soft makeup on the day Marc had invited me to the art show, but I hadn't been able to recreate the same guy-wowing effect ever since.

“How did the I-have-unprotected-sex eyebrow piercing factor into your new '
normal'
plan?” She did air quotes around the word
normal
.

I got my first twinge of regret over the piercing. Defensively, I said, “Eyebrow piercings don't say promiscuous. Maybe tongues do, a little. Not that I would think that and judge someone, but other people might.”

“Slippery slope,” she said, licking the icing out of an Oreo. “But if you want a guy, you have to look like the girl they want.”

“And what is that?”

“Megan Fox,” she said.

“That's so weird. Our prep cook at The Whistle is obsessed with her. As if he could get a girl like that!”

“Exactly. These guys have been trained by movies and video games to think they deserve the prize, no matter how grody they are.”

“Toph isn't the
worst
, but still.”

“You have to be that unattainable, ideal girl, who oozes sexuality, but exclusivity,” Haylee said.

For a moment, I took back all my mental grumbling about Haylee talking non-stop about Andrew and felt truly appreciative of my friend. We hadn't spent much time together since graduation, and that was a mistake. I loved Courtney, of course, but she wasn't exactly helpful in the hetero-dating department. Haylee at least had some experience.

“Take this,” Haylee said, waving her hand over her hair, face, and body. She wore a huge sweatshirt along with some pants that may have been pajamas. “This is the opposite of how you want to look. Andrew's out with friends today, so I'm taking the morning off.”

“You look comfortable.”

“The wrong kind of comfortable,” she said, laughing. “I'm getting my hair highlighted today and the color fixed. It's expensive, and a total rip-off, but so worth it. Then full makeup tomorrow morning, first thing. Andrew says he likes the natural look. It takes me about fifteen minutes to achieve the natural look.”

I slumped in my chair. “My eyebrow piercing was a mistake.”

She blinked at me, tilting her head to the side. “One tiny piercing is classy, but don't get more unless you want to go in that direction and get a guy with a face full of chains.”

I made an
ew
face. “I don't wanna date a guy with face piercings.” Quickly, I clapped my hand over my big mouth. “Woah, double standard,” I said.

She tapped her fingers on the counter. “Interesting.”

“I'm a horrible person.”

“You like what you like,” she said. “When it comes to boyfriends, you're not hiring someone or renting out an apartment. You don't have to be an equal opportunity dater.”

“I have an open mind,” I said.

“Nobody cares,” she said. “Guys either want to fuck you or own you or don't care, and which one do you want to be?”

I laughed nervously and took out my phone to check the time.
Shouldn't Haylee be going to get her laundry?
 

“This was really fun,” I said, standing. “I have to put on some stew for when Dad and Garnet get back from soccer.” I began putting away my sewing stuff. My little Forgotten Creature, a pink and grey bunny with mismatched ears, just needed a face.

Haylee grabbed a handful of cookies and began moving toward the front door. “We're having a belated housewarming,” she said. “I'll send out the invites tonight, after my hair appointment.”

“Party sounds fun. Any single guys?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Nobody your type.”

“I've never had a boyfriend. How do you know what type I like?”

“Exactly,” she said. “You're fussy. And you don't like the guys who like you.”

As we walked through the hall to the front door, past the family photos, I said, “Shut up! What?”

“You heard me. You should try liking a guy who likes you. What about that Toph guy from your work?”

“He's so skinny, and not in the right areas.”

She shrugged. “So, make him a sandwich. Work with what you've got.”

“Uhh … I'll think about it.”

“The party's bring-your-own-bottle,” she said.

“Of course.”

“But you can bring an extra one for sharing.”

I nodded. “Yup. And feel free to invite some extra cute guys, for sharing.”

She gave me a hug and left.

I thought about Toph. He was only eighteen, so maybe he wasn't quite fully grown yet.

After Haylee was gone, I searched through my collection of found objects for eyes to put on the Creature. The key to making your Creatures whimsical is to not put the eyes on in the expected, obvious places, but to affix them extra-wide, or extra-narrow, or too high, or too low. Another key, when it comes to the body, is to not give the Creature any neck. Necks are for people.

Frustrated by my lack of eyeball options, I did a quick search around the house, from the junk drawer in the kitchen, to the junk drawer in Dad's office. I found some old keys that would make neat neck-ties, but no eyes. Since Garnet was still out of the house, I wandered into his room.

I couldn't think of the last time I'd been in there, but the smell reminded me why I don't go in often. The boy, in person, smells okay, but something about a week's worth of laundry, even piled neatly in his hamper, seemed to create a critical bacterial level.

Also, there was something else in the air besides dust and boy cooties. Skunk? No, it wasn't a skunk, because the window wasn't open. Pot?

After a five-minute search, I found a plastic baggie and two joints, in my little brother's underwear drawer, under a folded stack of underwear.

Pot!

What the hell?!

I marched out of his room, down to the kitchen, slammed the baggie on the counter, and crossed my arms.
Now what?

No, really, what was I supposed to do? Be the cool big sister and suggest a better hiding space? Narc him out to my parents immediately? Take it for myself and plan a little experimentation party for me and my friends?

I was angry, though. How dare he bring pot into the house
on my watch
?

The baggie lay guiltily before me. That was when I started talking out loud to myself, muttering about what was or wasn't in Mom's instructions. I even opened her binder and searched under D for drugs and M for marijuana, but found nothing.

Philosophically, I have no problem with pot. People can pay a doctor to vacuum fat out of their asses and inject it into their cheeks or lips or whatever, and that's legal. Alcohol is legal and it makes people want to hit each other; pot makes people laugh and get hungry for Bugles.

So, I wasn't against the pot existing. We have a dispensary not far from the house, on East Broadway, that sells it for medicinal use to cancer patients, so it can't be that bad. By comparison, nobody gets a prescription for vodka.

All things being equal, however, I'd rather my little brother was
not
smoking anything mind-altering at the tender age of fifteen. His little teen brain didn't need that.

My Uncle Jeff is a great example of the dangers of drug use on a still-developing brain. When I was little, the guy terrified me. Who am I kidding? He still terrifies me.

I picked up the bag, pulled open the seal, and sniffed the contents. The little bugger couldn't say he was just holding the joints for a friend, because I'd smelled the smoke in his room. I had nose-witness smell evidence as well as physical evidence.

I put my face in my hands, feeling sick to my stomach, accidentally touching my raw-feeling eyebrow piercing with my dirty fingers.

Angrily, I sealed the bag again and stomped upstairs to return the bag to where I'd found it, right under the folded underwear. “Seriously, Garnet,” I said, still talking to myself like a crazy person. “Top drawer? It's like you want to be found out. Why didn't you tape them to the outside of your favorite hoodie?”

Idiot.
I don't know what disgusting people were handling the stuff, much less what other goodies besides marijuana were in it. And I touched my piercing after touching the bag. Oh, that little brat. If my eyebrow were to get infected from his poorly-hidden drug cache, I vowed to put a new hole in his face. With my fist. I waved my fist at the drawer for good measure.

Satisfied that his bedroom had been adequately threatened with violence, I went to my bathroom and did the cleansing ritual on my piercing. I calmed down.

Everything was different after that.

I don't know how to explain it other than I looked up from the sink and saw my mother's face in the mirror. I never realized how much I looked like her. There she was, staring back at me.

She asked me,
How do you like having my job?

I didn't like it at all.

Cooking dinner was losing its novelty. I didn't want to worry about my teenage brother and what he was getting into. I just wanted to daydream about boys, hang out with my friends, watch movies, and go shopping. I didn't want to work five days a week at a diner.

Things in my life were changing so fast, and I felt so lost and alone. A day earlier, everything had seemed better. A month ago, everything had been wonderful; a month ago, my mother had been there, taking care of us.

I brought my laptop over to my bed and turned it on, checking for email from Mom. She hadn't sent anything since her very dry, just-the-facts message from a few days earlier.

However, over on Facebook, Marc had finally accepted my friend request.

Chapter 15